


a catalog of non-definitive acts

by somethingradiates



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingradiates/pseuds/somethingradiates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>you want a better story. who wouldn't?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a catalog of non-definitive acts

**Author's Note:**

> please note that i have only actually watched the entire series once so far and that i am playing fast and loose with the canon timeline for a reason. i will probably come back and edit references to time as i discover fuck-ups.

**one**  
you realize that you've fucked yourself somewhere around week two.

you've always been an obedient sort: _justin is a very affable boy - justin gets along well with his peers - justin is well-respected by staff and student alike._ or: _justin is quick to follow direction,_ or: _justin is eager to help fellow students that may be struggling._

in too many words, your instructors meant: _justin is a brown-noser of the highest degree._ or: _justin is a busybody know-it-all with rather too much time on his hands._

everyone in the department knows it. you expect everyone in the department to know it, and you are both not surprised and not hurt to be proven right in their quiet ways. they read it on your face, in the nervous motions of your hands, in the way you half-rise every time john luther walks into the room and out of the room, as though you're meant to follow him. 

(and eventually you _will_ be meant to follow him, but not yet, and you hate yourself for wanting it _now_. you don't know this man, you tell yourself, you barely know his name, but every drop of loyalty in your blood and bone is his already.)

  
**two**  
it's freezing and it's pouring rain and for a moment you're not sure how it's still water, how it's not ice clattering sharp against the pavement and stinging against your hands - and then you're distracted because luther's in front of you, shuddering a little even inside his big coat.

let's fucking go, he says, christ, _london,_ and he's taking off, then, down the street. he never looks back to see if you're following him. he doesn't need to. you don't realize, at the time, that he understands that. 

he leads you to a coffeeshop half a mile away from the crime scene (only there's nothing you can do, not yet; you've been called in too early and showed up too early and forensics has told you in no uncertain terms that you're not to go traipsing around their fresh scene dripping and in muddy boots). you both order black tea, but you drink yours straight out and he spends a solid minute perfecting just the right amount of milk and sugar. it's - comforting, almost, watching him make his own tea - watching him fuss over it a little, sample it and make a little bit of a face and add another half-packet of sugar and only then decide that it's drinkable. 

_you're just about the last person i'd expect to add sugar to their tea,_ you offer on your way out of the shop. luther looks at you sidelong, both hands wrapped around the cup: _wossat s'posed to mean,_ he says, mostly against the plastic rim of the lid. 

_nothing,_ you say, shrug one shoulder. you wish you hadn't drank half your tea inside, or that you had gloves. _just seem the type for plain tea. strong and stoic and whatnot. brewed extra-strong._

_what,_ luther says, and when you chance a look up towards his face he's grinning, just a little. there are little frozen beads of water caught in his eyelashes, in his beard, his temples. _so you're strong and stoic, then? you didn't add nothing to yours._

you huff out a laugh, say something that might be _god, no_ , because your head is spinning around the ice-drops in luther's eyelashes and caught at his temples and, you think, there is nothing strong and there is nothing stoic about you. not a thing, not one single solitary thing.

you're near the scene, after that, wrapped up in flashes of blue-and-red and the insistent murmur of camera-snaps and documentations and whatever awful thing one human has done to another tonight, and luther's miniature smile is fading as quickly as it arrived. for a heartbeat or two, all you want to do is make it come back.

  
**three**  
by year one, you can't lie to yourself anymore. you take anything luther gives you; you want luther so bad you're fucking gagging on it, scrambling for the table-scraps he remembers to toss you once in a while and working _thank you, sir_ out in the things you do, not in anything you say with your throat and mouth. 

you throw yourself into being _his_ , and it comes with its own small set of rewards: luther grumbles about forgetting that he actually got assigned a second mum, but there's a little smile relaxing the tight line of his mouth for a moment or two when you fix his tea alongside your own and set it on his desk - it's out of the way between the kitchenette and your cube, but neither of you address that. 

  
**four**  
justin, schenk says. it's august and the entire city feels like it's boiling over. street crimes and homicide have been busier than justin's ever seen them, and you're thinking about that when his hand ends up on your shoulder, pats it in what you imagine he imagines is a fatherly manner. it startles you, just a little, the unexpected touch. justin, schenk says, you haven't gone home for two full nights. i want you to take the week-end off, do you hear me? 

he pauses for a moment, two, three, then: luther will manage quite adequately without you for a day or two, my boy.

you'd argue - you would - but it's been three days instead of two and your eyes feel like someone's carefully deposited the entirety of the gobi desert underneath your eyelids. and so you nod and gather your things and drive to your flat-block almost entirely awake.

you sleep for thirteen hours. you dream about big hands around your hips and about a short-cropped beard scratching the back of your shoulder and about someone gasping _justin, justin, justin_ into your skin. you dream about being thoroughly fucked, and you wake up hard and frustrated and desperate enough to finish yourself off there in bed instead of in the shower like you normally would. you bite down on your fist when you come; you're afraid of what you might say if you don't.

later in the day, you text schenk: _bored. can i come back yet?_

he texts back: _You may not._

you give him an hour to change his mind. he doesn't. and so you step to the only logical conclusion of an open saturday evening: you take your second shower of the day and search yelp for gay bars within a four-mile radius of your flat.

  
**five**  
he says his name is lincoln and he says that he's thirty-something and that he teaches something or other at a university in the city. you're too polite to say that you couldn't care less.

lincoln is tall and black and handsome, with slightly too-long hair and too little facial hair, but you can't be choosy when you are quite literally begging: _lincoln,_ you're saying, and you've known his name for one hour and seventeen minutes, give or take one or two. he's got you laid out on his couch (stupid, you'll think in the morning, stupid, going back to his place with him, some fucking police officer you've turned out to be) with one hand down your trousers and the other working his own belt buckle open, mouth on your neck, beard scratching at your skin. _lincoln, christ, fuck, please._

he doesn't kiss like you'd like, but there's nothing objectively wrong with it, so you let it continue. 

  
**six**  
 _where the fuck've you been, then,_ luther says, and it's painfully early on monday morning - before anyone else has even thought about showing up - and his voice is as normal as his voice ever gets but his eyes are watching you shrewd and careful and close to angry.

_out,_ you say. _schenk told me to take the week-end off._ you don't repeat schenk's unfunny half-joke about how you burning out at barely two years in makes the rest of the department look bad.

(you don't find jokes about cops burning out funny these days, but you keep that to yourself.)

you aren't expecting it but you're still not surprised when luther half-rounds on you - he'd been walking towards his own office but now he's not, he's stopped halfway between your cube and his door - and says _doing what, then?_ , rough and more aggressive than is probably necessary given the situation.

normally you would think about it for a moment, consider your options, react appropriately, but this isn't normal, luther's borderline-and-probably-not-but-maybe jealousy isn't _normal_ , and that's why you say _getting well-fucked, is that quite alright with you,_ sharp and cool enough that you watch the surprise steal over his face.

you know what his head is doing, you know how he's analyzing what you've just said: you know he's thinking about the fact that your words are chosen carefully, you're smart enough ( _smart enough_ should be a patented john luther phrase - _well, smart enough, i suppose_ , his voice says in your head) to know the implications of _getting fucked_ versus _fucking_.

_right_ , luther says, _right, well_ \- and steals away into his office like he's just remembered he's got somewhere rather important to be. he shuts the door behind him and it clicks loudly; it's suddenly altogether too quiet in the station, nothing but the gentle whirr of the computers to keep you company now that luther has locked himself away.

you think for a moment about the surprise on his face, the blankness in his voice, and wait for the triumph - or at the very least satisfaction - to come. neither do.


End file.
